Saturday, January 12, 2013

Melbourne Beer

Melbourne, while not as geographically grand as Sydney, has a wonderful bohemian tradition of local and crafty food, drink, shops and even hipsters.  Which is probably why it is often compared to Vancouver.  Heck, a seemingly faux craft beer bar has even crept its way into the Cairns airport - and Melbourne must be even more beer-developed.


By chance Mrs. Hoplog and I ended up in a small hotel directly across the street from the old Victoria Brewery building.  The building is now filled with shops instead of brewing equipment, but Victoria Bitter is still possibly the most popular beer in Australia.  (Note: Fosters is next to invisible in Australia; it's all Victoria Bitter and Carlton.)


Mrs. Hoplog and I didn't have easy access to a good craft beer store, so we grabbed some random craft beers at the local bottle shop and had an impromptu tasting.


4 Pines is actually from Sydney, but all of them were solid.  The Cascade beers (hey Steamworks, there's another use of the term...) from Tasmania were mixed - the original pale ale wasn't great, but the stout was excellent.  And the Mountain Goat was a Steam Beer - the reach of Anchor Brewing's trade-mark for "steam" doesn't appear to extend to Australian beer, so it's actually labelled "steam" instead of "California common".


Little Creatures


We popped by the Little Creatures pub in the hip Fitzroy neighbourhood.  Little Creatures is a Western Australian craft brewer that is big enough you can find it almost anywhere.  The pale ale is a good fallback choice when nothing else is available.


Until recently, the main space contained long communal tables like a Bavarian beer hall.


The beer was solid - probably a step up from Granville Island's usual offerings.


But with the typical $10/pint prices, we felt like our limited beer dollars should be spent on something more local and/or interesting.


It was definitely surprising how much more craft beer costs than mass market light lagers in Australia.  For example, the above special at a boutique hot dog/sausage cafe - $10 for a beer and a brat.  But if you want a craft beer, add $3.  If you figure that's $4 for the brat and $6 for the beer, that's a 50% premium for the craft beer.  The same rule of thumb holds true in bottle shops.  In contrast, ordinary craft beer in BC is usually about the same price as the big-name light lagers in the same shop or restaurant.


Mountain Goat Brewing


Temperatures in Melbourne soared above 40 C, and the bushfire danger increased from Extreme to CATASTROPHIC.  (Yes, they print it in all-caps.)  Rather than drive around the countryside waiting to be burned alive, we decided to stay in the air conditioning, only venturing out for a thirst-quenching visit to Mountain Goat brewing when the sun was low in the sky.

The thermometer in our cab read 43 C as we departed.  If that's not time for a refreshing, well-carbonated beer, I don't know what is.


The goat

Mountain Goat is housed in a very Yaletown-esque brick warehouse space, lending it a homey Pacific Northwest craft brewery look and feel.  This is perhaps not surprising, given its origins.  One of the founders took a trip to Vancouver in the mid-90s, where a friend took him out to various pubs to sample our locally-made craft beers.  He was amazed and inspired by what he saw and tasted, and so resolved to start a microbrewery from that moment - voila, Mountain Goat.



The brewery is only open to the public on Wednesdays (when tours are given) and Fridays, serving their beer and lovely pizzas.

Bottle boxes teetering above the bar




Mountain Goat's beers were great.  A lightly spiced (barely-detectable chocolate, ginger, etc.) dry stout hit the spot surprisingly well on this warm day.  As did a thin Summer Ale with a huge punch of passionfruit hop aroma and flavour.  The Steam Beer was a tasty part of their staple line.

Perhaps the most interesting was their Black IPA (Cascadian Dark Ale) run through a randall (infuser) full of pepperberries.  This batch was not nearly hoppy enough to be called a Cascadian Dark Ale/Black IPA, and was slightly too roasty as well, but with the pepperberries it was floral, herbal and spicy but still clean, and a great treat regardless of style.



Mountain Goat is a must-see when in Melbourne.  Take note!


Local Taphouse, St. Kilda


We stopped by the Local Taphouse in the St. Kilda neighbourhood for a late lunch one day.  In a word: fantastic.  This appears to be the Alibi Room of Melbourne (as far I am aware).  Many wonderful beers on tap and in the bottle, all of them interesting, rare and/or very local.




It was heaven.  We had been hoping to find such a perfect craft beer nerd support centre in Australia, and after several weeks we had finally found one!


The duck confit made a nice snack as well.  The food was stellar.


Second storey patio


Wine On Tap


While shopping at the surprisingly good Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, I ran across a wine stand filled with large oak wine barrels - that were actually filled with wine!


This was ReWine - a company that purchases wines from various vintners, ages it and/or relabels it, and sells it direct from the barrel in refillable bottles. You get a few dollars off the next bottle if you bring it back for a refill.


So essentially it's a wine growler shop.  But it made me think - maybe Vancouver Urban Winery and other FreshTap venues like Tap And Barrel could get in on the accelerating beer growler craze in Vancouver, but from the wine side.


Beer Deluxe


We almost missed Beer Deluxe, since we didn't spend much time in the touristy epicenter of Melbourne's Federation Square where it's located.  However, we came in on a quiet afternoon, and discovered an excellent selection of both Australian and international beer, well trained staff, and competitive prices.



As an added bonus due to the lack of patrons, I had an in-depth craft beer chat with a very knowledgeable bartender, who also gave Mrs. Hoplog and I samples of most of their draught offerings between our other beers.  Great service, great beer, definitely recommended.



A straight ahead but very tasty saison

Aussie Homebrew

I didn't meet many Australian homebrewers in my travels.  However, I did spy a homebrew shop in the small town of Marysborough on the Sunshine Coast, and stopped in for a look around.

(For you Mary Poppins fans - I known you're out there - Marysborough was the birthplace of PL Travers, author of Mary Poppins.)




It looked much like your average neighbourhood homebrew shop, perhaps leaning more towards wine-making than beer.  Liquid yeast wasn't stocked, as there wasn't enough demand to keep the fresh stuff on hand, and high Australian temperatures favour hardier dry yeast.

Apparently homebrewing is very popular even in this rural area - not surprising given the high price of commercial beer.

The proprietor mentioned how strict the authorities were regarding the tasting and serving of homebrew at the shop - they basically couldn't do it, even though they held brewing classes and such.  This is much the same as Canada.

However, Australia has British Columbia, Canada beat in at least one major respect - distilling!


That, my friends, is a 5 litre distilling condenser, and it's sold as such at the homebrew shop.  Home distilling is not allowed in BC, but it's perfectly fine in Australia as long as your condenser size is 5 litres or less.  So the above unit is even labelled as a distilling device.


The homebrew shop also sells larger units - I believe the one above is approximately 15-20 litres.  Since the rules don't allow distilling on equipment over 5 litres, these big ones are labelled as "condensers" and can't be advertised as useful for distilling alcohol.

Sláinte, Australia!

Gold Coast Beer


Did some travelling on Australia's Gold Coast, from Brisbane down to Byron Bay.


Brisbane


My first encounter with something tangentially beery was at the Brisbane Museum: the largest museum-displayed crystal of gypsum in Australia (several hundred kilograms).  Brewers of Burton-style ales should appreciate such a gem.



What else did Brisbane hold?  Not much, apart from the Alibi Room!  No, no, not that Alibi Room.  This was a local pub in New Farm with cheap eats and a pretty standard line of beers (ending with the Australian equivalent of Granville Island beers).  But Mrs. Hoplog and I had to try it out anyway.

Alibi Room down under

The big macro brewer in the area is XXXX Gold, or "Queensland for Beer" as the slogan goes.  They offered "tours", but it appeared these were more of the Guinness-theme-park variety and cost more than $20 per person, so we gave it a miss.


Byron Bay


We popped in to Byron Bay - the legendary hippie surfing destination - just long enough to see that it's now full of tourists and beach poseurs and not a lot else.  But on the way out of town we saw road signs reading "brewery."  You don't have to tell us twice.




Well this seemed promising, and it's only about 1 km from downtown.  Byron Bay Brewing used to sell generic light lagers manufactured for them by other breweries.  But several years ago it was purchased and turned into a proper craft brewery catering to its own huge premises as well as some other local establishments.



Would you look at that, there's an actual working brewery in there!  They even offer tours, and the brewers are busy brewing something in full view of the patrons.



Good selection.


And surfboard-shaped tasters are available - very appropriate.


Happily, the beers were great.  Not a dud among them.  We were very happy travellers - this was a far better option than trying to look cool on the overcrowded beach.  Not to be missed in Byron Bay!


Their brewery capacity was quite large, but apparently they are able to sell most of the beer at the brewpub itself.  Impressive.



You even get a friendly "water dragon" to go with your beer.

Beer Down Under - Sydney

Ah, long term travelling.  It's great, don't get me wrong.  But sometimes you face dilemmas.  Such as when you want to sample a bunch of local craft beer, but you're in Australia where everything is unbelievably expensive for poor backwater Canadians, and you're on a tight budget.  What do you do?

For starters you drink a lot less beer.  :-(

The Aussie dollar is really strong ($1.06 CDN), and you have to use a lot of them to buy anything.  Fortunately, all taxes are included in prices, and there is not a culture of tipping, so that's like getting a 30% discount compared to eating out in BC (12% HST + up to 18% tip).  Even so, it's costly.

Also, craft beer in Oz is quite expensive relative to other products and even other alcoholic drinks such wine and mass-market light lagers.  A 330 mL bottle of "normal" craft beer will generally cost you $4 AUS.  Pints are $10-$12 for "normal", and more as the alcohol content increases.

Despite being in beer survival mode, I did manage to try a craft beer or two here and there.  Though nothing terribly exotic.


Red Oak Brewing


In the heart of Sydney's business district is Red Oak, and their theme is beer and food pairing.  They have tasting events and the like.  Cool stuff.


Like most Aussie pubs they don't do tasting flights - in order to get a taster you have to order a food pairing "tasting board", where they pair a gourmet tidbit with each small sample of 4 beers.



The food was excellent.  And the beer was well done, if not exceptional or overly adventurous.  I felt the pairings, while appropriate, were generally safe as opposed to mind-expanding.  The pairings worked, but none resulted in a dish that was greater than the sum of its parts.  (A bit like Den Dyver in that respect.)  Still, a worthwhile concept, and one that will hopefully help to legitimize craft beer as a proper beverage.


The beer is no longer brewed on-premises, so tours weren't available.


Diageo


Walking past Lavender Bay, we spotted a major Diageo office.  You might remember them as the corporate overlords for companies (oh, I'm sorry, I mean "brands") such as Guinness, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray, etc. as well as Bushmills and Oban which I toured in the British Isles last year.  I swear I felt the Eye of Sauron upon me as I strolled past.  (Or maybe that's just because I'm writing this from New Zealand...)



Lord Nelson Brewery


Dean, head brewer of Lighthouse Brewing in Victoria, also brewed for the Lord Nelson earlier in his career. Situated in the "Rocks" neighbourhood a stone's throw from the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, it has a solid lineup of British-style ales with a matching interior.  Unfortunately the brewer wasn't around, so we couldn't get a tour.


Some hoppy refreshment on a very warm Sydney day.  The Lord Nelson is definitely worth a stop if you're in town; and let's face it you're going to be at Circular Quay next to the Opera House at some point anyway, why not walk up the hill for 5 minutes and have a proper pint?